Microsoft – A special business-mission for Microsoft

A SPECIAL BUSINESS-MISSION FOR MICROSOFT

Creating better user experiences for all users is the utmost outcome of including a female focus in your innovation processes. Microsoft applies this new strategy, eyeing a $18 trillion business potential in more explicitly targeting their tech products at women.

Peggy Johnson, the Executive VP for Business Development at Microsoft went straight to the point when she opened the Hack for Her summit in Seattle recently. She even put a number on this opportunity – according to Microsoft, women represent a §18 trillion market. Among the attendants from tech industry and startups were also three members of the design-people team, flown in by Microsoft to share their know-how and industry cases on female innovation gathered through design-people’s abundant work within this field. At the summit, design-people’s strategy director Klaus Schroeder presented findings from the Female Interaction research project and ways these insights have been applied by tech companies such as Danfoss and Bang & Olufsen.

Women represent the largest growing market opportunity today. It’s not just about ticking a box on CSR, it’s a bigger business for everybody, if we can address this market appropriately.

— Londa Schiebinger, Professor at Stanford University.

We spent the rest of the week working closely with Microsoft’s Hack for Her team on upcoming activities, exchanging perspectives, experiences and best practice-scenarios. More is definitely to be done and said within the area of female centric innovation – as Londa Schiebinger, Professor at Stanford University, put it at the summit: “Constantly retro-fitting for women isn’t the best way. Products and systems that incorporate the smartest aspects of gender can open new markets. Products that meet the needs of diverse user-groups enhance global competitiveness and sustainability.”

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